South Africa: Why capitalism needs the death squads

In her recent book on the history of Columbia’s death squads, Jasmin Hristov has argued that neoliberalism needs the squads, and the resulting inequality would have been impossible to maintain without them. Hristov notes that death squad violence 'is purposefully directed towards sectors of society that stand in the way of the ruling class’s efforts to maintain economic dominance and acquire more resources to make even more profit. The upper classes so fear political organising among the poor, who could mount a formidable opposition to the status quo if allowed to organise unrestrained by state repression.' In the wake of political assassinations in South African provinces, Jane Duncan, the Highway Africa Chair of Media and Information Society at Rhodes University, looks at how serious the problem is.